Friday, September 6, 2013

Orientation

Yesterday was a hell of a long day. All the study abroad orientation events were organized for that day. First was the general study abroad orientation, followed by the arts academic advisory, and finally a history information session. Basically routine things that we all need to know.

Between the study abroad orientation and arts academic advisory, I had lunch with some more American friends I met, from California, Iowa, and Colorado. I also went to an International student cafe with them. After all the events, we met up with some more friends to go to a pub crawl hosted by the international society. There were almost 600 students that showed up, so they split us up, but we had to split off and do our own thing anyway because there were still a lot of students. We went to a pub in the Temple Bar region of the city center, which is the touristy area. It was pretty packed but it was nice to be tourists for the night. Had a pint in the Temple Bar pub, then went to another pub called Porterhouse Central. There I had a pint of the beer they brew there, called the Plain Porterhouse.




After Porterhouse, we all went to a club called Dicey's for some music and dancing which was a lot of fun. Later we stopped at Burger King on our way home for some of the other people in the group. After such a long day, I just came back to the apartment and crashed.

Today was a pretty good day too. After last night, I was exhausted, so I slept in this morning. I then met up with some friends and finally headed into the city center to get a cell phone, which was long overdue. We also had lunch at an Italian restaurant called Boticelli's in Temple Bar. Funny story about Temple Bar today and last night: Tonight there's a World Cup qualifying match between Ireland and Sweden. As Temple Bar is the main tourist region of Dublin, the place was packed with Swedes here showing their patriotism and pride. It was really great to see the enthusiasm for soccer. They were full of energy and excitement, and it was extraordinary to see.




We also spent some time at Trinity College Dublin, which was a pretty cool place. We were going to go into the library and see the Book of Kells and the library itself, but it costs 9 Euro and we decided to come back. Overall though, Trinity was a cool place. It's open to the public, so there were a lot of tourists, which kind of diminished it's splendor. But it was still cool.




Now I've just finished my dinner and I may go to the international lounge because they are playing The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. If not I'll probably have a quiet night in organizing my room and getting ready for classes on Monday (too soon!).

This weekend should be a lot of fun. I'm going to Wicklow National Park tomorrow for the day with other international students. We'll be doing some hiking in the mountains so that should be great. Then after we get back, the international lounge will be screening Skyfall which I haven't seen so I'll probably go for that. Then Sunday I'm signed up for a walking tour of Dublin, so I can see all the main sites and hopefully get some more pictures.

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